Bits of Glass
by hijklmnop
Summary: It's weird, it's comforting, it's a nice kind of familiarity and simplicity when you're picking bowel off your jackets later, tiny skull fragments from names you may not know but faces you'll never forget.


The problem here is that he knows you too well.

It's finishing sentences, it's not needing sentences, it's not worrying about the right words because he knows what you're trying to say before you even speak. It's weird, it's comforting, it's a nice kind of familiarity and simplicity when you're picking bowel off your jackets later, tiny skull fragments from names you may not know but faces you'll never forget.

You're not made for the slaughter life, you think. You're perfect for it, he suggests to the contrary. You were born for this shit. Sometimes you worry that he's right, or maybe you're relieved that you fit in somewhere. You don't feel as guilty as you probably should, after all, maybe just because he thinks so highly of you while you are.

You were two peas in a pod, or maybe not, because you didn't think peas knew tips for getting blood out of 70% polyester, or had as shitty apartments (was the pod their apartment? Because you'd take this shithole over something green and veiny any day), or maybe peas didn't even get along, you don't know, nobody asks them because they're fucking peas and you hate this metaphor because you hate peas and peppers and most things green and leafy but especially peas. Fuck.

This was all his fault.

The guns, the apartments, the peas. It wasn't his fault. It was all his fault. She was different. She was a vixen embodied, a goddess in chains, a breath of fresh air that made you realize how truly fucked the balance between you and him was. You wonder if she saw it for how it was. You wonder if it made him see it for how it was too, if she had the same damn effect on him. You don't like that idea. It makes you feel too small for your shoes.

You miss it while it's gone and you don't. You miss the blood sometimes when you think too much about it. You miss the hair, you miss his reminding you about that throat cancer before he'd filch your Camels. You miss him, though you'd never feed his ego enough to tell him, to give him that satisfaction - and he tells you instead anyways, for you, just assumes, probably thinks you don't realize it until he says it aloud. He's wrong.

But what you really miss, you truly miss, was the understanding, someone who just GOT you on a level so fucked up and nine kinds of deep that you could speak, entire conversations without saying a single word. He knew what you wanted - you think, or he told you what you wanted and you accepted that answer as your own. Maybe there wasn't a difference. Maybe you two were just that alike.

You miss the option of words. You miss silence being an acceptable answer. You miss never having to explain yourself.

The Bebop is cold and unforgiving, home, but not like your apartment had been. You'd been able to maneuver that place in the dark, blind drunk, knew every corner. But this ship, seemed like every day it had more things to tell you about itself, more nooks and crannies you'd never explored.

There was quiet, to an extent, for years. Buzzing, maybe, louder than from your earlier days, more pressuring and then her. And then her. It wasn't that you didn't know the right words, it was that, for nearly ten years, you'd never had to explain yourself, not once. Suddenly you found yourself having to do so, exponentially more. Answering questions. Sharing small talk. Verbal quips. You'd gotten real witty over the years. You miss quiet.

You miss him. But you hate him. And you never want to go back. Not like you could if you wanted to.

There's a kind of beauty to how he fights; it's why he chose his blade over something blunt and brusque like a pistol. Those are your area. You can run and you can fight, to the tooth and nail, you can even dance if you're in that zone. He made his weapon sing, when he really utilized it, powerful melodies, scary melodies. It was frightening, hauntingly melodic, dissonant, comforting, and always, always made a crescendo into blood.

What were if hands could speak...

That church makes you think of old times, back to back, grittiness all around, adrenaline pumping. That church makes you think of old times and you want to laugh, you're overwhelmed. You've been dying for three years and he's that breath, that one you take when you've been underwater too long, when you can't break the surface and, fuck, it hurts and you're too dizzy, hacking breaths, but you had to do it, you had no other option.

And, no, it didn't help.

There's cold steel jammed into your chest and you can feel your heart dance, skip a bit, shudder against that blade and threaten to quit. It's refreshing, with the gunshot you landed. You can't kill him. Oh, God, what if you'd killed him and he hadn't returned the favor?

There's glass, bits and shards, a cacophony of reds and purples. They cut and slice and you bleed just like any other person, you fall like any other person. You're not even paying attention. You're back in that apartment. You burnt the scrambled eggs again. He's ironing your shirt. He's fucking you over the kitchen table, fingerprint bruises painting blues and yellows into your hips. You're not queers, not that you're too worried - too much to fret about, bullets and blood and affording food the next morning, that's the bottom of your list. You're a married couple, you're friends, you're brothers, although brothers don't fuck (and neither do married couples), and it's just one more thing about you two that doesn't make sense. It's undefinable. You don't understand it. And yet, you get it.

You miss him.

And you're not dead yet. It means he isn't either.

This is not over. 


End file.
